NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 (Fresh poll ➥ Vote)

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Who is the MVP so far?

Poll ended at Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:39 am

Damian Lillard
13
5%
Luka Doncic
8
3%
Nikola Jokic
76
32%
Joel Embiid
14
6%
Kawhi Leonard
1
0%
Steph Curry
3
1%
Giannis Antetokounmpo
51
21%
James Harden
20
8%
LeBron James
51
21%
Other - Who?
1
0%
 
Total votes: 238

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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2081 » by dygaction » Wed Mar 17, 2021 7:57 pm

Roy The Natural wrote:
dygaction wrote:
Roy The Natural wrote:
Lillard is now providing a net rating boost of +8.7 for the Blazers while Jokic is providing a boost of +2.5.


There are so many adv stats and this likely to be the only one favors Lillard. Let's look at really on a game to game basis.
Spoiler:
Joker Dame
1 W (+30) 34 W (+25) 33
2 W (+38) 32 W (+26) 26
3 W (+15) 27 W (+11) 22
4 W (+12) 24 W (+19) 20
5 W (+13) 20 W (+6) 18
6 W (+31) 18 W (+11) 17
7 W (+27) 16 W (+2) 14
8 W (+17) 16 W (+18) 12
9 W (+11) 14 W (+3) 11
10 W (+7) 13 W (+9) 10
11 W (+17) 13 W (+2) 9
12 W (+18) 12 W (+1) 9
13 W (+6) 12 W (+6) 9
14 W (+10) 10 W (+1) 9
15 W (+25) 8 W (+2) 6
16 W (+8) 8 W (+4) 6
____________________________________________
17 L (-4) 6 L (-3) 5
18 L (-2) 5 L (-7) 4
19 W (+2) 5 W (+12) 3
20 L (-2) 5 W (+3) 2
21 L (-5) 2 L (-3) 1
22 L (-13) 2 L (-3) 0
23 L (-10) 1 W (+1) 0
24 L (-3) 1 L (-2) -2
25 W (+5) 0 L (-21) -3
26 L (-13) -2 W (+4) -3
27 L (-2) -2 L (-24) -6
28 W (+10) -3 L (-11) -6
29 W (+1) -3 L (-6) -6
30 L (-7) -6 W (+4) -8
31 L (-8) -7 W (+8) -10
32 L (-21) -8 L (-15) -10
33 L (-10) -9 L (-9) -10
34 W (+15) -9 L (-5) -15
35 W (+4) -10 L (-23) -20
36 L (-6) -11 L (-20) -21
37 L (-13) -12 L (-32) -29
38 W (+4) -13 L (-28) -32
39 L (-13) -20 W(+16) DNP

As you can see, both of the teams depend strongly on their performances. Joker played all 39 games. Dame missed one game in which POR won by 16.
Overall, when Joker's in game +/- are equal or greater than 8, his team win all 16 games. Similarly, when Dame's +/- are equal or greater than 6, his team win all 16 games. In those games, Joker's average +/- is +17.3, vs. Dame's 14.4, indicating Joker helped slightly more in team winning.
For the rest of the games, they have the same record, Joker's average is -3.8, Dames is -7.5, indicating Joker was less of a liability.
Just focusing on all the lost games, Joker's average is -3.4, and Dame is -9.9, meaning Dame sucked bigger, but Joker's team could not climb up a much shallower hole.


That's not nearly as telling or useful as on/off data.

All stats have their own merits. On/off data are averaged, can thus be misleading as they do not differentiate stat padding in a blowout win over clutch performance. When you only look at their lost games, it is clear who was more responsible and which team could not afford a bad performance from their franchise player.
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2082 » by BelgradeNugget » Wed Mar 17, 2021 8:00 pm

Roy The Natural wrote:
BelgradeNugget wrote:
Roy The Natural wrote:
Sure, some of that's true. However, the Nuggets and Blazers are very similar teams when Lillard/Jokic are on the floor. Team's both hover around an offensive Rtg of 120-121 when Lillard/Jokic are on the floor and have bad defense. Denver 115 Drtg, Portland a 118 DRtg. Both offenses plummet when Jokic/Lillard leave the floor to right around 108.

The main difference between the 2 teams? Portland's defense drops a little bit when Lillard's on the floor while Denver's absolutely craters from really good to Portland levels when Jokic is on the floor. It's interesting to see these on/offs because they indicate that despite Jokic's uniqueness and greatness he really doesn't provide anymore offensive boost to his team than Lillard does to his.


There are different stats that we could compare and different conclusions we can make. So let's see.
1. Nuggets and Blazers have similar OFFRTG 116.4 to 116 (Nuggets 5th Blazers 6th)
2. Nuggets are 15th in DEFRTG right now 111.4, Blazers are 29th with 116.4. So to say both teams are bad at defense is as accurate as saying Nuggets have as good defense as 2nd in DEFRTG 76ers
3. Jokic's DEFRTG 112.8 which is 1 point worst then his teams while Dame's DEFRTG is as terrible as his team 116.8. With Jokic out Nuggets are a little bit better on defense by this stat, whit Dame out Blazers are still terible, so are we going to conclude they are the same. No Jokic is much better. Some stats point Jokic as being great defender, some as good, some as not good. Every defensive stat points to Dame being terrible defender.
4. One more question about stats. Embiid is great rim protector allowing 53% at the rim. Jokic is terrible at 64.2%. Still Embiid is allowing 4.9 DFGM at the rim while Jokic is alowing 4.4 DFGM playing more minutes than Embiid. Explanation please. Which stat is more important DFG% or DFGM?
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defense-dash-lt6/?sort=FGM_LT_06&dir=1

What I want to say is you can't look at just one stat and make a conclusion. And I don't care about SRS, Blazers have as good record as the Nuggets so I think that Dame definitely overleaped LeBron in MVP race and is closing on Janis, Harden, Jokic and Embiid.


The Nuggets have a DRtg of 106 with Jokic off the floor and a defensive rating of 115 with him on the floor. Surely that REALLY good DRtg when he's off the floor is helping to rise the overall DRtg of the team.


My question is simple. If they are so much better with him off the floor why are they resting him so little and his backup Hartenstien is playing 9 min per game with 11 DPN's?
Second question still stands: Which stat is more important DFG% or DFGM at the rim?
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2083 » by Roy The Natural » Wed Mar 17, 2021 8:34 pm

BelgradeNugget wrote:
Roy The Natural wrote:
BelgradeNugget wrote:
There are different stats that we could compare and different conclusions we can make. So let's see.
1. Nuggets and Blazers have similar OFFRTG 116.4 to 116 (Nuggets 5th Blazers 6th)
2. Nuggets are 15th in DEFRTG right now 111.4, Blazers are 29th with 116.4. So to say both teams are bad at defense is as accurate as saying Nuggets have as good defense as 2nd in DEFRTG 76ers
3. Jokic's DEFRTG 112.8 which is 1 point worst then his teams while Dame's DEFRTG is as terrible as his team 116.8. With Jokic out Nuggets are a little bit better on defense by this stat, whit Dame out Blazers are still terible, so are we going to conclude they are the same. No Jokic is much better. Some stats point Jokic as being great defender, some as good, some as not good. Every defensive stat points to Dame being terrible defender.
4. One more question about stats. Embiid is great rim protector allowing 53% at the rim. Jokic is terrible at 64.2%. Still Embiid is allowing 4.9 DFGM at the rim while Jokic is alowing 4.4 DFGM playing more minutes than Embiid. Explanation please. Which stat is more important DFG% or DFGM?
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defense-dash-lt6/?sort=FGM_LT_06&dir=1

What I want to say is you can't look at just one stat and make a conclusion. And I don't care about SRS, Blazers have as good record as the Nuggets so I think that Dame definitely overleaped LeBron in MVP race and is closing on Janis, Harden, Jokic and Embiid.


The Nuggets have a DRtg of 106 with Jokic off the floor and a defensive rating of 115 with him on the floor. Surely that REALLY good DRtg when he's off the floor is helping to rise the overall DRtg of the team.


My question is simple. If they are so much better with him off the floor why are they resting him so little and his backup Hartenstien is playing 9 min per game with 11 DPN's?
Second question still stands: Which stat is more important DFG% or DFGM at the rim?


They're not better with him off the floor. Their offense goes from 108 ORtg to 120 ORtg.
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2084 » by BelgradeNugget » Wed Mar 17, 2021 11:22 pm

The Master wrote:This analysis is useless, because you're comparing Nuggets' team DRTG to the DRTG of Nuggets with Jokic on a floor, but it doesn't take into account amount of minutes with and without. If you go by stats from nba.com, Nuggets have 112.8 DRTG with Jokic on a floor and 102.2 DRTG without Joker, their average is 111.4 because Jokic plays 75% of minutes of Nuggets, so the fact that Nuggets are very good defensively without Jokic can't impact team Nuggets general stats that much. In reality, Nuggets are bad defensively with Jokic and great defensively without him, and while a situation that Nuggets are that bad with Jokic on a floor isn't only his fault, Jokic's weaknesses on defense are certainly not helpful either.


Well now I understand this. What I don't undrestand is this:
Last year in the playoffs Jazz as a team had defensive rating of 116.8 (by nba.com)
Rudy Gobert (DPOY) had defensive rating of 119.4 in 38.6 mpg. How much worst was he making Utah defensively?
Or there is some context behind that?

The Master wrote: Some stats point Jokic as being good defender, because defense is very difficult to evaluate, and many metrics take into account stats that are not precisely representative to real level of defense of a player, like rebounding or steals. Lillard is a point guard, so there's much less mislead about evaluation of his defense. According to same metrics, Russell Westbrook was a great defender thanks to his rebounding, while in reality most of time he was average or even below average because he was statpadding those rebounds no matter what. That's why Jokic's BPM stats and BPM-based formulas are historically great, while in reality it is really flawed formula in defense evaluation.


1. How you evaluate PG's defense?
2. We all know Russell Westbrook was stat-pading rebounds because his teammates were boxing out for him and he wasn't challenging shots to secure rebounds. If Jokic is 5th in league in box outs per game, are his rebounds legit defensive stat? He is among the league leaders in steals and deflections, without gambling and stat-padding are those stats in this case legit defensive stats?
3. Embiid is allowing 4.9 DFGM <6ft, Jokic is allowing 4.4. Is Jokic Dikembe Mutombo now? What if Embiid is attacking drivers at the rim while Jokic's point of attack is a little further from the rim forcing drivers to shoot midrange shots or floaters (less efective shots than layups). Is Jokic still worst rim protector in the league or he is doing it differently?

I aksed a lot of questions, here is how I see it. If every offensive stat says Jokic is great there must be some truth to that (and Dame is also great only not on Jokic's level). If every defensive stat shows Dame as terrible defender there must be some truth to that. And if some defensive stat show Jokic as great, some as average and some as terrible I would go with average.
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2085 » by Roy The Natural » Thu Mar 18, 2021 12:06 am

BelgradeNugget wrote:
The Master wrote:This analysis is useless, because you're comparing Nuggets' team DRTG to the DRTG of Nuggets with Jokic on a floor, but it doesn't take into account amount of minutes with and without. If you go by stats from nba.com, Nuggets have 112.8 DRTG with Jokic on a floor and 102.2 DRTG without Joker, their average is 111.4 because Jokic plays 75% of minutes of Nuggets, so the fact that Nuggets are very good defensively without Jokic can't impact team Nuggets general stats that much. In reality, Nuggets are bad defensively with Jokic and great defensively without him, and while a situation that Nuggets are that bad with Jokic on a floor isn't only his fault, Jokic's weaknesses on defense are certainly not helpful either.


Well now I understand this. What I don't undrestand is this:
Last year in the playoffs Jazz as a team had defensive rating of 116.8 (by nba.com)
Rudy Gobert (DPOY) had defensive rating of 119.4 in 38.6 mpg. How much worst was he making Utah defensively?
Or there is some context behind that?

The Master wrote: Some stats point Jokic as being good defender, because defense is very difficult to evaluate, and many metrics take into account stats that are not precisely representative to real level of defense of a player, like rebounding or steals. Lillard is a point guard, so there's much less mislead about evaluation of his defense. According to same metrics, Russell Westbrook was a great defender thanks to his rebounding, while in reality most of time he was average or even below average because he was statpadding those rebounds no matter what. That's why Jokic's BPM stats and BPM-based formulas are historically great, while in reality it is really flawed formula in defense evaluation.


1. How you evaluate PG's defense?
2. We all know Russell Westbrook was stat-pading rebounds because his teammates were boxing out for him and he wasn't challenging shots to secure rebounds. If Jokic is 5th in league in box outs per game, are his rebounds legit defensive stat? He is among the league leaders in steals and deflections, without gambling and stat-padding are those stats in this case legit defensive stats?
3. Embiid is allowing 4.9 DFGM <6ft, Jokic is allowing 4.4. Is Jokic Dikembe Mutombo now? What if Embiid is attacking drivers at the rim while Jokic's point of attack is a little further from the rim forcing drivers to shoot midrange shots or floaters (less efective shots than layups). Is Jokic still worst rim protector in the league or he is doing it differently?

I aksed a lot of questions, here is how I see it. If every offensive stat says Jokic is great there must be some truth to that (and Dame is also great only not on Jokic's level). If every defensive stat shows Dame as terrible defender there must be some truth to that. And if some defensive stat show Jokic as great, some as average and some as terrible I would go with average.


But what supports this? Dame's offensive RPM is higher. His team's ORtg on/off is pretty much exactly the same. Lillard's offensive Raptor is higher. Lillard is scoring 3 points more a game on similar efficiency and is averaging .5 assists less with the same turnover rate.

Every meaningful measure shows that Lillard is just as impactful if not more than Jokic offensively. There quite simply isn't credible evidence to indicate that Jokic is having a larger impact for his team offensively than Lillard. So it sort of comes down to defense.

Defensive metrics are always going to be much murkier. VORP/BPM/WS are mostly useless on both ends as they're basically boxscore amalgamations with some team rating coefficients piled in (A slightly nicer PER type stat). Lillard isn't a great defender, no doubt. But as a point guard it's one of the least impactful positions defensively on the court. I wouldn't put too much into any one specific defensive metric for either player. Overall I'd rate both as slightly below average on that end. The difficulty in comparing a point guard to a center defensively is going to be very tough to overcome. Lillard is probably only of any impact on something like 10% of plays whereas Jokic is going to impact somewhere between 70%-90% of defensive plays. Just the nature of the position. The fact that when isolating Jokic from counting stats his team seems to play better defense without him is a bit worrisome, but not necessarily a factual damnation of Jokic as a defender.

I'm still not even arguing Lillard over Jokic for MVP, I'm just arguing against the notion that he's separated himself from Lillard in anything other than counting (specifically rebounding) stats. I'm also arguing against these weird narratives built up around "pseudo-advanced" stats that are just boxscore combiners with coefficients in front of the counting stats. Unless you're looking for general offensive efficiency I consider any statistic in which you can pull straight from a boxscore that doesn't incorporate on/off or isolated +/- to be inadequate to determine "impact" on a team.
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2086 » by Openheimer » Thu Mar 18, 2021 1:41 am

No KD, NO Kyrie, no Blake Griffin? No problem the leading MVP candidate right now says hold my beverage 40 points 16 assists 10 boards including 15 last quarter points. This is your mvp folks
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2087 » by iamworthy » Thu Mar 18, 2021 2:14 am

I dont think MVP voters will reward Hardens actions that happened earlier this year.
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2088 » by Ballerhogger » Thu Mar 18, 2021 2:37 am

Harden going finish 2nd . I got feeling this won’t go over well .He could finish first..
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2089 » by Ballerhogger » Thu Mar 18, 2021 2:38 am

iamworthy wrote:I dont think MVP voters will reward Hardens actions that happened earlier this year.

Kinda ify on it . If he’s going put up those numbers
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2090 » by Balls Deep » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:19 am

If Harden wins MVP I will stop watching basketball straight up
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2091 » by Openheimer » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:34 am

Balls Deep wrote:If Harden wins MVP I will stop watching basketball straight up

At this rate he is the favorite
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2092 » by Balls Deep » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:36 am

Openheimer wrote:
Balls Deep wrote:If Harden wins MVP I will stop watching basketball straight up

At this rate he is the favorite


How? Kyrie has shared the load since KD went down. They’re a tag team basically.
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2093 » by Jurassic_Park » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:41 am

I think it will be a 3 man race between these guys here
Lebron
Jokic
Harden

*not listing Embiid as he will miss too many games to be considered imo
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2094 » by Big J » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:43 am

Joker & Giannis are leading this thing now with Harden in 3rd.
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2095 » by mademan » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:43 am

Openheimer wrote:
Balls Deep wrote:If Harden wins MVP I will stop watching basketball straight up

At this rate he is the favorite


I legit have it at 0% that the voters would give Harden the MVP in a season he demanded out from a team and gave up for like 15ish games. And i do think he's been the most impressive player in the league since going to the Nets
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2096 » by DCasey91 » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:45 am

Harden in the East is like sending a professional hitman to an easier environment lol. This is mid difficulty for him.

Imagine 2018-19 Harden solo act if both Durant/Irving miss a ton of games together. Or wait if that’s does happen boom 40 point triple double consistently lol. He’s absurd top 3 at bare minimum.
Li WenWen is the GOAT
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2097 » by deneem4 » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:52 am

Embiid *
Jokic
Giannas
Butler
Lillard
Harden
Lebron
Curry
Luka
Paul
Pay your beals....or its lights out!!!
Bron, Bosh, Wade is like Mike, Hakeem, barkley...3 top 5 picks from same draft
mike, hakeem and Barkley on the same team!!!!
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2098 » by Openheimer » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:55 am

Balls Deep wrote:
Openheimer wrote:
Balls Deep wrote:If Harden wins MVP I will stop watching basketball straight up

At this rate he is the favorite


How? Kyrie has shared the load since KD went down. They’re a tag team basically.

Kyrie has missed 5 games since the trade. The Nets are 4-1. Harden has been the constant and the man running the offense
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2099 » by Openheimer » Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:55 am

DCasey91 wrote:Harden in the East is like sending a professional hitman to an easier environment lol. This is mid difficulty for him.

Imagine 2018-19 Harden solo act if both Durant/Irving miss a ton of games together. Or wait if that’s does happen boom 40 point triple double consistently lol. He’s absurd top 3 at bare minimum.


Harden is a top 4 player right now but yeah that monster who was putting up 60-10-11 or 53-17-13 in Houston is still in there but he dosent need to go there to often anymore
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Re: NBA MVP Discussion 20/21 

Post#2100 » by Swish1906 » Thu Mar 18, 2021 4:02 am

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